Tony, a separate thread

Harpoon Ultimate Edition is the best and most comprehensive compilation of computer Harpoon games ever assembled! The two flagship products in the Harpoon line up, Advanced Naval Warfare and Commanders Edition come highly expanded and improved from their previous versions. More than twenty classic versions of Harpoon are also included! Harpoon - Ultimate Edition is the most powerful and complete modern naval warfare simulation on the market and a must have for any Harpoon fan!
Post Reply
rich12545
Posts: 1051
Joined: Tue Oct 31, 2000 10:00 am
Location: Palouse, WA

Tony, a separate thread

Post by rich12545 »

I've been asking but it continues to get covered up by longer posts.

Wondering what you're working on for HUCE and what improvements we can look forward to in the next year. Thanks.
User avatar
TonyE
Posts: 1570
Joined: Mon May 22, 2006 9:50 pm
Location: MN, USA
Contact:

RE: Tony, a separate thread

Post by TonyE »

fb.asp?m=2964934

You might also peruse the recent posts in the HCE forums at HarpGamer.

http://harpgamer.com/harpforum/index.php?showforum=33 is probably a good start.

When I talk about a remote viewer, it does exist but needs to be brought up to date (I wrote it before the 2008.024 patch!). See attached.



Image
Attachments
HCRV0500.jpg
HCRV0500.jpg (113.26 KiB) Viewed 107 times
Sincerely,
Tony Eischens
Harpoon (HC, HCE, HUCE, Classic) programmer
HarpGamer.com Co-Owner
rich12545
Posts: 1051
Joined: Tue Oct 31, 2000 10:00 am
Location: Palouse, WA

RE: Tony, a separate thread

Post by rich12545 »

Thanks for the info. I guess I missed your reply.

Last year you mentioned you wanted to bring all the scenerios up to standard with all the new features. Are you still planning that?
User avatar
TonyE
Posts: 1570
Joined: Mon May 22, 2006 9:50 pm
Location: MN, USA
Contact:

RE: Tony, a separate thread

Post by TonyE »

ORIGINAL: rich12545

Thanks for the info. I guess I missed your reply.

Last year you mentioned you wanted to bring all the scenerios up to standard with all the new features. Are you still planning that?

I can't recall the context of such a comment. What I do know is that such a gargantuan project would be undertaken by the wider community, not me. I would only be around to assist from a knowledge and coding perspective. All such projects that have been started seem to falter in the face of the huge amount of time it would take to re-create every scenario in the game.

As part of the USNI demo (where a handful of us re-made five scenarios and updated the database) we did accomplish an example of what the results might look like. That also provided a good base database representing the late Cold War time period. To my knowledge nobody has requested that database as a foundation for remaking the stock scenarios.

To clarify a bit for everyone else, all of the old scenarios run in the current HCE and use many of the improvements to the game engine (which is often good but sometimes bad in terms of the original scenario intent). This question by rich12545 is addressing the idea of remaking the stock scenarios to make optimal use of the improved capabilities of the game over the last 11-20+ years.
Sincerely,
Tony Eischens
Harpoon (HC, HCE, HUCE, Classic) programmer
HarpGamer.com Co-Owner
rich12545
Posts: 1051
Joined: Tue Oct 31, 2000 10:00 am
Location: Palouse, WA

RE: Tony, a separate thread

Post by rich12545 »

That's better than what I remember. What I thought is they didn't utilize the newer features. I'd rather see the old scenarios using the new features with only an occasional glitch rather than not using them. Glad you clarified.
mavfin
Posts: 274
Joined: Tue Jun 22, 2010 5:22 pm

RE: Tony, a separate thread

Post by mavfin »

ORIGINAL: rich12545

That's better than what I remember. What I thought is they didn't utilize the newer features. I'd rather see the old scenarios using the new features with only an occasional glitch rather than not using them. Glad you clarified.

I realize it's been a few months, but I'll clarify this further:

The old battlesets (original, HDS I, HDS II, HDS III, and EC2000) all have embedded databases in them. So, they use the new GE features, but, they don't use the updated commondb, and also can't take advantage of things like the Coldwar or WorldWar databases. EC2003, Westpac, and the other new 'shell' battlesets that Tony has added will all use whatever commondb the game is loading. Downloaded battlesets may or may not have embedded battlesets, so you'll have to check those if you download them.

So, to rewrite all the old scenarios included in those battlesets would be a large undertaking, because they couldn't really just be 'converted'. They'd have to be rebuilt from the ground up, and sometimes in more ways than just putting in the same units and orders because of differences between the embedded DBs and the CDB.

These differences may be things like changed loadouts, or changed missile ranges. For example, a staple of the original DBs is an F16 loadout with 12 Mavericks. You won't find that in the CDB anywhere. Four Harpoon and/or four HARM loadouts aren't that common in CDB, either, and those are staples that the older DBs are built around. That means a fair amount of rebalancing work when rebuilding those old scenarios.

So, not saying it won't happen, it's just that it's not something you can just whip up a magic tool for and run the files through. Would it be fun? Yes.

Having said all that, those old DB scenarios are still working just fine in most cases, and are still fun. They just don't have all the things available in the CDB.

Edit: I probably shouldn't include EC2000 in this, as those *have* been rewritten. The rewritten versions are EC2003.)
--Mav
User avatar
TonyE
Posts: 1570
Joined: Mon May 22, 2006 9:50 pm
Location: MN, USA
Contact:

RE: Tony, a separate thread

Post by TonyE »

Well said mavfin. We're always looking to support players who want to re-create the scenarios. With the re-made USNI battleset Brad started a database that keeps the late Cold War feel. With some interested scenario authors we'd happily package the re-made scenarios in battlesets within the game. HC is a volunteer effort, Brad and I are volunteers like everyone else (yes, we get small royalties but not enough to even pay for the tools we use), we've just been at it longer than most so have in general more experience.



Sincerely,
Tony Eischens
Harpoon (HC, HCE, HUCE, Classic) programmer
HarpGamer.com Co-Owner
Post Reply

Return to “Larry Bond's Harpoon - Ultimate Edition”